ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on emerging journalistic practices that have been labeled ‘data journalism’. Since the late 2000s, an increasing number of journalists have seen databases and algorithms as appropriate means for making news. Taking advantage of the growing availability of digital data, they promote a ‘computational approach’ to news production. This means that news production is viewed as a process based on a heterogeneous set of digital technologies and computing skills, where data are collected, analyzed, and presented to provide readers with various news products, from conventional articles to news applications or visualizations. In many countries, journalists have seen ‘data journalism’ or ‘computational journalism’ (for definitions, see Coddington 2015) as a way to address the multifaceted crisis facing their profession: the contraction of financial resources for news organizations, the decline of investigative reporting, and a relentless suspicion of partisanship. In other words, the ‘data journalism’ claim is that as they rely on data-processing technologies, news organizations are less dependent on their sources, demonstrate greater objectivity, and serve their customers more efficiently.
